Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
“. . . a dessert of peaches and raspberry sauce with vanilla ice cream. It was invented in 1892 or 1893 by the French chef Auguste Escoffier at the Savoy Hotel, London, to honour the Australian soprano Nellie Melba.”
*The U.S. said that its strikes (along with the UK) on the Houthi terrorists in Yemen were not meant to “spark a wider war“. But of course they will:
A White House spokesman said on Friday that the American-led military strikes on Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen were not intended to ignite a wider regional war, even as Houthi leaders and their allies vowed to respond.
“We’re not interested in a war with Yemen — we’re not interested in a conflict of any kind,” the spokesman, John Kirby, said. “In fact everything the president has been doing has been trying to prevent any escalation of conflict, including the strikes last night.”
Mr. Kirby said it would be “some hours” before analysts could assess how much damage was done in the latest round of strikes but that everything that the United States hit was a “valid, legitimate military target.” U.S. officials have said they fear that support from Iran has helped turn the Houthis into a sophisticated fighting force.
The United States, Britain and a handful of other allies launched air and naval strikes early Friday against more than a dozen targets linked to the Houthi militia. Some American allies in the Arab world have expressed doubts that the attacks would deter the Houthis, but could further inflame a region seething over Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza. Oman, a U.S. ally that has mediated talks with the Houthis, criticized the strikes and expressed its “deep concern.”
The U.S.-led strikes were a sharp escalation of American action against Houthi drone and missile attacks in the crucial commercial shipping lanes of the Red Sea, which the militia has said are in support of Palestinians under Israeli bombardment in Gaza. A spokesman for the Houthis, referring to the American-led strikes, told Al Jazeera: “It’s not possible for us not to respond to these operations.”
The Biden administration and some allies, which have sought to avert a wider conflict, had issued ultimatums to the Houthis warning of serious consequences if they did not stop firing at ships. Since the Houthis began their attacks in November, global shipping lines that use the Red Sea and the Suez Canal have diverted hundreds of vessels around Africa, adding around two weeks and costs to the journey.
Here’s a map from the NYT of where the U.S. and its allies attacked the Houthis; all the targets were military ones:
But of course the Houthis have vowed revenge:
The Houthis’ Supreme Political Committee said that the strikes had “violated all international laws” and warned that “all American and British interests have become legitimate targets” for the militia. That veiled threat might refer to American military installations in neighboring countries, such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, where the Houthis have launched successful attacks in the past.
Yemen’s Houthi militants vowed Friday to continue targeting ships in the Red Sea to protest Israel’s military campaign in the Gaza Strip, following U.S.- and British-led strikes on Yemen. A spokesman for the Iran-aligned group said the strikes would “not go unpunished.”
*Once again I’m stealing three items from Nellie Bowles’s weekly summary of the news on The Free Press, called this week “TGIF: This means war.”
→ Shut down the Red Cross: I’m not saying every international organization is impossibly corrupt, but I am now operating on a guilty-until-proven-innocent basis. Here’s Jake Tapper on the Red Cross: “Family of female hostage being held in Gaza says when parents told the Red Cross that she needed daily medication for her health, a Red Cross worker told them they should focus their concerns on Gazans.” I wouldn’t be surprised if she told them to decenter their white tears.
And here’s Hillel Neuer, a tireless, one-man UN watchdog: “The Red Cross just named its next director: Pierre Krähenbühl. When he was forced to quit UNRWA after an internal ethics report implicated him in abuse of power, corruption and an alleged sexual affair with a staffer, he blamed a US-Israel conspiracy.” That’s all in one week!
Meanwhile, South Africa has taken Israel to the International Criminal Court on charges of genocide. On a related note, here is the former mayor of Johannesburg:
He seems like a viable peace partner, a real reach across the aisle type. Can’t wait to see him speak at Davos after Greta.
→ You may not suppress Douglas Murray: The United Kingdom has a terrorism problem. And that problem looks like Douglas Murray, our Sunday columnist. At King’s College in London, there was a course organized by the Center for Defense Studies, designed for professionals in counterterrorism, attended by members of the Foreign Office—and it was all about how Islamism is not the real threat at all. A lecturer spoke about Douglas Murray and, bizarrely, Joe Rogan. I’m getting all this from an essay published afterward by Anna Stanley, a whistleblower who writes:
The lecturer further argued that Douglas Murray and Joe Rogan are both examples of the far right. ‘To what extent should Joe Rogan and Douglas Murray be suppressed?’ he asked. ‘They have millions of followers. To de-platform them would cause issues.’ Concluding his talk, the lecturer told a room full of government professionals, ‘so, society needs to find other ways to suppress them.’
Interesting. Now, I think I am reasonably smart and well-read, but I have spent entire dinners sitting next to Douglas, so I am forced to accept that I am low-IQ. And you know what? It’s not right. Suppress him please. It’s enough.
→ Taylor Swift is upset the NYT called her gay: The New York Times ran a whole 5,000-word opinion piece by an opinion section staffer saying that Taylor Swift is gay. If you’re unfamiliar with this genre of obsessive Taylor Swift fan culture, in which women turn into QAnon-level sleuths trying to parse Taylor Swift’s every move, well, you really should read this one. For our purposes today, here is the crux of the argument:
Whether she is conscious of it or not, Ms. Swift signals to queer people—in the language we use to communicate with one another—that she has some affinity for queer identity. There are some queer people who would say that through this sort of signaling, she has already come out, at least to us. But what about coming out in a language the rest of the public will understand?
Oh sweet writer, I’ve been down this road. I learned as a teenager, and you must learn now, as a grown adult at the paper of record, the pretty blonde girl is picking the football player. (Read Freddie deBoer for more.)
Predictably, Taylor Swift didn’t like the 5,000-word investigation calling her gay, and through unnamed associates called it “inappropriate.” Which honestly is exactly what a lesbian would say.
A “privilege” list from the Johns Hopkins Medicine’s Office of Diversity, Inclusion, and Health Equity (DEI) caused a backlash that quickly resulted in a retraction on Thursday.
The @EndWokeness X account released an unearthed newsletter from Chief Diversity Officer Dr. Sherita H. Golden on the January 2024 issue of Monthly Diversity Digest. The message included “privilege” as the “Diversity Word of the Month” along with a series of descriptions considered “privileged.”
“Privilege is an unearned benefit given to people who are in a specific social group. Privilege operates on personal, interpersonal, cultural and institutional levels, and it provides advantages and favors to members of dominant groups at the expense of members of other groups,” the newsletter read.
Here it is. The message wasn’t up long after people got wind of it:
John Hopkins just sent out this hit list of people automatically guilty of "privilege" whether they know it or not:
-Males -Whites -Christians -Mid-aged people -Able-bodied people -Middle & owning class -English-speaking people
. . . . After the message went viral, Golden sent out a new statement on Thursday retracting the newsletter and claimed it was not intended to offend anyone.
Dr. Golden later apologized for the newsletter, calling it “poorly worded.” (Adobe Stock)
“The newsletter included a definition of the word ‘privilege’ which, upon reflection, I deeply regret. The intent of the newsletter is to inform and support an inclusive community at Hopkins, but the language of this definition clearly did not meet that goal. In fact, because it was overly simplistic and poorly worded, it had the opposite effect of being exclusionary and hurtful to members of our community,” Golden wrote.
“I retract and disavow the definition I shared, and I am sorry. I will work to ensure that future messages better reflect our organizational values.”
In a statement to Deseret News, Johns Hopkins Medicine confirmed the accuracy of both messages.
“The January edition of the monthly newsletter from the Johns Hopkins Medicine Office of Diversity, Inclusion and Health Equity used language that contradicts the values of Johns Hopkins as an institution. Dr. Sherita Golden, Johns Hopkins Medicine’s Chief Diversity Officer, has sincerely acknowledged this mistake and retracted the language used in the message,” a spokesperson said.
If that’s the case, Hopkins should completely disband the DI(H)E office, pronto. For DEI without assertions of “privilege” is not DEI.
A New York City public school is being accused of “Jewish erasure” after a map from one of its classrooms surfaced showing all the countries of the Middle East except Israel, which is labeled “Palestine.”
The Free Press was shown a photo of the map of the “Arab world,” hanging in the art classroom at PS 261, a public elementary school in Brooklyn. Rita Lahoud uses the classroom to give lessons to pre-K and elementary students in the “Arab Culture Arts” program, which is funded by Qatar Foundation International (QFI). QFI is the American wing of the Qatar Foundation, a nonprofit owned by the ruling family of the wealthy Arab state, which harbors leaders of the terrorist group Hamas.
Tova Plaut, a New York City public school instructional coordinator for pre-K through fifth grade classrooms, said she found the map “concerning.”
“It’s not just that we’re experiencing Jewish hate in NYC public schools, we’re actually experiencing Jewish erasure,” Plaut said. “And here is proof of that.”
Rita Lahoud did not respond to an email seeking comment. The principal of PS 261 deferred comment to the Department of Education.
The map:
And the Department of Education isn’t admitting any problem:
After The Free Press emailed the Department of Education to ask if the map remains in the classroom after Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, a spokesperson wrote back: “Why would it not be?”
Nathaniel Styer, the DOE spokesperson, added in his reply that “this is a map of countries that speak Arabic.”
Around two million people living in Israel are Arab, which is just over 20 percent of the country’s population. Many of them speak Arabic.
The emergence of the map comes after a Free Pressinvestigation showed how educators in American public schools are increasingly teaching students to hate Jews. One curriculum—the Brown University Choices Program—which presents ideas of Israel being an “apartheid state” and “a military occupier” taught to one million public school students nationwide, has been distributed by QFI.
Shades of Representative Rashida Tlaib, who not only had a map in her office showing “Israel” as part of Palestine, but wore a tee-shirt to that effect. Notice her brandishing with approval Linda Sarsour’s book We Are Not Here to be Bystanders: A Memoir of Love and Resistance. There’s also a keffieyeh shown on her tee shirt,
From The New Arab on January 6, 2019, three days after Tlaib took office:
Palestinian-American congresswoman Rashida Tlaib has made yet another mark of her heritage with a post-it note that marked Palestine on her world map in her office.
Buzzfeed reporter Hannah Allam posted the sticky note on Twitter, “Someone has already made a slight alteration to the map that hangs in Rashida Tlaib’s new congressional office.”
*Scientists decided that the largest ape that ever lived went extinct because they were too big and couldn’t climb trees to get food. The species has been known for some time, but according to Wikipedia, the size estimates may be off (as they say, “Total size estimates are highly speculative because only tooth and jaw elements are known, and molar size and total body weight do not always correlate.”).
From the AP:
An ancient species of great ape was likely driven to extinction hundreds of thousands of years ago when climate change put their favorite fruits out of reach during dry seasons, scientists reported Wednesday.
The species Gigantopithecus blacki, which once lived in southern China, represents the largest great ape known to scientists — standing 10 feet tall (3 meters) and weighing up to 650 pounds (295 kilograms).
But its size may also have been a weakness.
“It’s just a massive animal – just really, really big,” said Renaud Joannes-Boyau, a researcher at Australia’s Southern Cross University and co-author of the study published in the journal Nature. “When food starts to be scarce, it’s so big it can’t climb trees to explore new food sources.”
The giant apes, which likely resembled modern orangutans, survived for around 2 million years on the forested plains of China’s Guangxi region. They ate vegetarian diets, munching on fruits and flowers in tropical forests, until the environment began to change.
The researchers analyzed pollen and sediment samples preserved in Guangxi’s caves, as well as fossil teeth, to unravel how forests produced fewer fruits starting around 600,000 years ago, as the region experienced more dry seasons.
The giant apes didn’t vanish quickly, but likely went extinct sometime between 215,000 and 295,000 years ago, the researchers found.
While smaller apes may have been able to climb trees to search for different food, the researchers’ analysis shows the giant apes ate more tree bark, reeds and other non-nutritious food.
“When the forest changed, there was not enough food preferred by the species,” said co-author Zhang Yingqi of China’s Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology.
Here’s a size reconstruction from Prehistoric Wildlife (1.8 meters is about 6 feet tall). And it was likely a knuckle walker:
Here’s the Nature paper; click to read:
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili uses big words to describe her nap:
Hili: Sybaritism is demanding.
A: How so?
Hili: It forces me to constantly look for the best position.
In Polish:
Hili: Sybarytyzm jest wymagający.
Ja:To znaczy?
Hili: Zmusza do ciągłego poszukiwania najlepszej pozycji.
And Paulina’s picture of Baby Kulka frolicking in the snow:
*******************
From Daniel:
From Malcolm: shoe-shi:
From Thomas:
From Masih, another brave Iranian woman arrested, jailed, and tortured, solely for not covering her hair. Rashno’s story is here.
Despite enduring torture during her arrest, Sepideh Rashno refuses to cover her hair. She's been sentenced to four years in prison. Today, she shared a picture and reiterated the three words symbolizing her struggle and that of millions of Iranian women: #WomanLifeFreedompic.twitter.com/y7SoydejLC
Ilhan Omar, one of several antisemitic Representative, gets a reply. Remember, there WAS a two-state solution, and one of the states was Gaza. Look what the Palestinians did to it! (The Israeli “blockade” certainly didn’t impoverish Gaza, for Israel left in 2005 and imposed the blockade, along with Egypt, only in 2007. That was after Hamas defeated Fatah and began firing rockets into Israel. The blocked was imposed later only to prevent weapons and material used to make rockets from being brought into Gaza.
Two tweets from Dr. Cobb. First, Roger Daltry of The Who being thick-headed, and a response. (Matthew titles it “I hope I die before I get old”, sung by Daltrey on the song “My Generation”.)
Drumming snipe and crexing Corncrake, complimented by the beautiful melodies of several skylark. I lay down in the twilight and thought about how lucky I was to be there alone listening to this. It was cold, but calm and just so pure. pic.twitter.com/KOs4GHMeSG
On this day:
1435 – Sicut Dudum, forbidding the enslavement of the Guanche natives in Canary Islands by the Spanish, is promulgated by Pope Eugene IV.
1547 – Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, is sentenced to death for treason, on the grounds of having quartered his arms to make them similar to those of the King, Henry VIII of England.
1822 – The design of the Greek flag is adopted by the First National Assembly at Epidaurus.
1840 – The steamship Lexington burns and sinks four miles off the coast of Long Island with the loss of 139 lives.
1842 – Dr. William Brydon, an assistant surgeon in the British East India Company Army during the First Anglo-Afghan War, becomes famous for being the sole survivor of an army of 4,500 men and 12,000 camp followers when he reaches the safety of a garrison in Jalalabad, Afghanistan.
1884 – Welsh physician William Price is arrested for attempting to cremate his deceased infant son; this eventually led to the United Kingdom cremation act becoming law.
1888 – The National Geographic Society is founded in Washington, D.C.
1893 – The Independent Labour Party of the United Kingdom holds its first meeting.
1898 – Émile Zola’s J’accuse…! exposes the Dreyfus affair.
1908 – The Rhoads Opera House fire in Boyertown, Pennsylvania kills 171 people.
1910 – The first public radio broadcast takes place; a live performance of the operas Cavalleria rusticana and Pagliacci is sent out over the airwaves from the Metropolitan Opera House in New York.
1920 – The Reichstag Bloodbath of January 13, 1920, the bloodiest demonstration in German history.
1942 – Henry Ford patents a soybean car, which is 30% lighter than a regular car.
1942 – World War II: First use of an aircraft ejection seat by a German test pilot in a Heinkel He 280 jet fighter.
1953 – An article appears in Pravda accusing some of the most prestigious and prominent doctors, mostly Jews, in the Soviet Union of taking part in a vast plot to poison members of the top Soviet political and military leadership.
1964 – In Manchester, New Hampshire, fourteen-year-old Pamela Mason is murdered. Edward Coolidge is tried and convicted of the crime, but the conviction is set aside by the landmark Fourth Amendment case Coolidge v. New Hampshire (1971).
1966 – Robert C. Weaver becomes the first African American Cabinet member when he is appointed United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.
1968 – Johnny Cash performs live at Folsom State Prison.
1978 – United States Food and Drug Administration requires all blood donations to be labeled “paid” or “volunteer” donors. [The UK continued to use Factor VIII from paid American donors, resulting in the blood contamination scandal. The official inquiry is ongoing.]
1982 – Shortly after takeoff, Air Florida Flight 90, a Boeing 737 jet, crashes into Washington, D.C.’s 14th Street Bridge and falls into the Potomac River, killing 78 including four motorists.
1985 – A passenger train plunges into a ravine in Ethiopia, killing 428 in the worst railroad disaster in Africa.
1988 – Lee Teng-hui becomes the first native Taiwanese President of the Republic of China.
1990 – Douglas Wilder becomes the first elected African American governor as he takes office as Governor of Virginia in Richmond, Virginia.
1993 – The Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) is signed.
2012 – The passenger cruise ship Costa Concordia sinks off the coast of Italy due to the captain Francesco Schettino’s negligence and irresponsibility. There are 32 confirmed deaths.
2018 – A false emergency alert warning of an impending missile strike in Hawaii causes widespread panic in the state.
2020 – The Thai Ministry of Public Health confirms the first case of COVID-19 outside China.
2021 – Outgoing U.S. President Donald Trump is impeached for a second time on a charge of incitement of insurrection following the January 6 United States Capitol attack one week prior.
Births:
1810 – Ernestine Rose, American suffragist, abolitionist, and freethinker (d. 1892).
1870 – Ross Granville Harrison, American biologist and anatomist (d. 1959). [Credited for his pioneering work on animal tissue culture. His work also contributed to the understanding of embryonic development.]
1900 – Gertrude Mary Cox, American mathematician (d. 1978). [Her most important and influential research dealt with experimental design. In 1950 she published the book Experimental Designs , on the subject with W. G. Cochran, which became the major reference work on the design of experiments for statisticians for years afterwards. In 1949 Cox became the first woman elected into the International Statistical Institute and in 1956 was President of the American Statistical Association.]
1926 – Michael Bond, English author, created Paddington Bear (d. 2017).
1927 – Sydney Brenner, South African biologist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2019).
1929 – Joe Pass, American guitarist and composer (d. 1994).
1938 – Daevid Allen, Australian singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 2015).
1938 – Anna Home, English children’s television executive and producer.
1940 – Edmund White, American novelist, memoirist, and essayist.
1952 – Stephen Glover, English journalist, co-founded The Independent.
1960 – Matthew Bourne, English choreographer and director.
1961 – Wayne Coyne, American singer-songwriter and musician. [Included as a namesake of our host.]
1961 – Julia Louis-Dreyfus, American actress, comedian, and producer.
1961 – Suggs, English singer-songwriter, musician, and actor.
1965 – Bill Bailey, British musician and comedian.
1975 – Andrew Yang, American entrepreneur, founder of Venture for America, and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate.
1977 – Orlando Bloom, English actor.
1982 – Ruth Wilson, English actress.
What I look forward to is continued immaturity followed by death. (Dave Barry):
888 – Charles the Fat, Frankish king and emperor (b. 839).
1599 – Edmund Spenser, English poet, Chief Secretary for Ireland (b. 1552).
1625 – Jan Brueghel the Elder, Flemish painter (b. 1568).
1691 – George Fox, English religious leader, founded the Religious Society of Friends (b. 1624). [Better known as the Quakers.]
1717 – Maria Sibylla Merian, German entomologist and illustrator (b. 1647). [Today’s Woman of the Day, see next post below.]
1832 – Thomas Lord, English cricketer, founded Lord’s Cricket Ground (b. 1755).
1864 – Stephen Foster, American composer and songwriter (b. 1826) [Gone from the earth to a better land I know,
I hear their gentle voices calling “Old Black Joe”. Is he cancelled yet…?]
1882 – Wilhelm Mauser, German engineer and businessman, co-founded the Mauser Company (b. 1834). [Did the company employ cats?]
1929 – Wyatt Earp, American police officer (b. 1848).
1941 – James Joyce, Irish novelist, short story writer, and poet (b. 1882).
1943 – Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Swiss painter and sculptor (b. 1889).
1958 – Jesse L. Lasky, American film producer, co-founded Paramount Pictures (b. 1880).
2009 – Patrick McGoohan, Irish-American actor, director, and producer (b. 1928). [I am not a number! I am a free man!]
2009 – Nancy Bird Walton, Australian pilot (b. 1915).
2010 – Teddy Pendergrass, American singer-songwriter (b. 1950).
2017 – Magic Alex, Greek electronics engineer (b. 1942). [He got his nickname from John Lennon, who he impressed with the Nothing Box, a small plastic box with randomly blinking lights which Lennon would stare at for hours while tripping on LSD. He was in India with the Beatles at the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s ashram in India and was then given the job of head of Apple Electronics, having allegedly claimed that he could build a 72-track tape machine. He designed the new Apple Studio in Savile Row. His schemes lost Apple at least £300,000 (£5.54 million in 2021 pounds).]
Woman of the Day:
[From Wikipedia]
Maria Sibylla Merian (born 2 April 1647, died on this day in 1717) was a German entomologist, naturalist, and scientific illustrator. She was one of the earliest European naturalists to document observations about insects directly.
She received her artistic training from her stepfather, Jacob Marrel, a student of the still life painter Georg Flegel. Merian published her first book of natural illustrations in 1675. She had started to collect insects as an adolescent. At age 13, she raised silkworms. In 1679, Merian published the first volume of a two-volume series on caterpillars; the second volume followed in 1683. Each volume contained 50 plates that she engraved and etched. Merian documented evidence on the process of metamorphosis and the plant hosts of 186 European insect species. Along with the illustrations Merian included descriptions of their life cycles.
In 1699, she travelled to Dutch Guiana to study and record the tropical insects native to the region. In 1705, she published Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium, which has been credited with influencing a range of naturalist illustrators. Because of her careful observations and documentation of the metamorphosis of the butterfly, Merian is considered by David Attenborough to be among the more significant contributors to the field of entomology.
She discovered many new facts about insect life through her studies. Until her careful, detailed work, it had been thought that insects were “born of mud” by spontaneous generation. Her pioneering research in illustrating and describing the various stages of development, from egg to larva to pupa and finally to adult, dispelled the notion of spontaneous generation and established the idea that insects undergo distinct and predictable life cycles.
1864 Stephen Foster dies (both by Jez here and Jerry at the top). I do not know if it was because his music was particularly easy to play or because of its patriotic, homespun, American sound, but in the 1960’s, it seemed that there was always a Stephen Foster piece on the program for every high school band concert we played. Sometimes several of the songs Jerry listed were arranged in a single piece called something like “a medley of American tunes”.
1982 Air Florida Flight 90 – Not that it makes a difference to the victims, but the plane did not crash into the bridge and fall into the river so much as the bridge broke its fall as it was already descending toward the river on climb-out and just caught the top of the bridge structure on the way down. If I recall correctly, the plane had a combination of anomalies caused by heavy, wet snow at Washington DC National Airport (now Ronald Reagan) including extra weight of accumulated snow, slow acceleration on the runway, and a problem with airspeed sensors due to snow and ice accumulation. I think that this was one of the first public mentions that former fighter pilots needed to be mindful that transport aircraft do not have the power that they may be used to to get them out of bad situations.
Thanks, Jim. I just took a look at the crash’s Wikipedia page and it looks like the plane wasn’t properly de-iced and then, after leaving the gate, was held for 49 minutes waiting to take off while more snow fell. The pilots decided against returning to be de-iced again, worried that they would be delayed even more. A tragic misjudgement, although given the airport’s departure from the proper de-icing protocol it would be harsh to blame the flight crew alone. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Florida_Flight_90#Improper_de-icing_procedures
There’s a lot to be depressed about too, but today I’m going with those two.
I don’t understand why South Africa is siding with Hamas. Have they all gone Islamic?
No, just “anti-colonial.”
Things are not going well in South Africa. The government is corrupt, the economy is static and the infrastructure of the society is slowly breaking down (for example lengthy power cuts are now routine). It’s what happens to a society when every appointee is appointed for DEI reasons or political reasons rather than on merit.
It’s now 30 years since Mandela became President, so simply blaming whites for everything that is wrong is wearing thin. Thus the South African government likes nothing more than a way of distracting attention from its own domestic incompetence, with the added bonus of having a fresh way of blaming “whites”.
The New York Times piece on Taylor Swift is nothing but gossip and belongs in The National Enquirer, not a supposedly serious newspaper. Imagine if a right-wing source such as Fox News had published such a piece about a celebrity. Whatever happened to “all the news that’s fit to print?”
Haven’t read the article, but if the implication is that she’s “queer” and not gay (lesbian) it’s not gossip, but propaganda. You can be straight and still consider yourself queer because the definition is about as flabby as it gets, for it includes gender nonconformity and just about anyone who doesn’t fit the stereotype of a prudish, straight-laced, hate-filled religious conservative. Taylor Swift doesn’t. So she can call herself queer.
The point is to widen the members in the category of LGBTQ+ and create more people who support the TQ+ part and think it’s just like supporting LGB: it’s a spectrum.
She posed with her arm draped over another woman’s shoulder for a photograph in a bar or club. It has been blown out of all proportion, with some idiots saying it’s a “porn pose”. No wonder she’s annoyed! https://twitter.com/BradfemlyWalsh/status/1744999515000590665
Whatever one thinks of porn, can we at least agree that not everything some random punter dislikes is directly due to porn?
How nice of the skylarks to compliment the snipe and corncrakes. I never thought they were that thoughtful.
Just read it; worth reading, even if one disagrees with it.
Although he doesn’t say so directly, he seems to imply, despite his remark about executive pay, that the problem with the NHS is some fundamental problem, whereas the main problem is that it is a good idea but currently underfunded (but, even so, still better than many other places for most people).
At the end of the day, despite any influence Daltrey might have due to his fame, he is still basically a Shepherd’s Bush geezer. Most have worse opinions than he does; one just doesn’t hear about them. The real problem is stupid people in power, or people think that white people are literally aliens getting a genius fellowship.
Dear God (if an atheist may start that way), it is obvious to anyone working in a public health service that he is right about that. A lot more than half of funding goes to managers here in Nova Scotia (I’m delighted they can’t stop me from saying that now!) and the same is true of the NHS.
Think of it this way. University administration and DEI offices may upset you somewhat. Now imagine it is the health care you would, otherwise, be entitled to that is being removed from your treatment options simply because the money has been spent on administrators’ salaries. Just imagine that when you have cancer and need an expensive treatment which is known to work. Now you can’t have it because the money has been spent on administrators! That is reality these days for ‘healthcare workers.’
He mentioned the NHS twice. The first time, it was just generic “doesn’t work properly—that’s the NHS for you”. The second time he mentioned management salaries. While it is not good if people are overpaid, I seriously doubt the the NHS, or Nova Scotia health service, spends MORE THAN HALF of its total budget on managers. Do you have some figures to back that up? That sounds like the claims that if we could just cut the salaries of MPs in half we could pay off the national debt.
Maybe I shouldn’t have been so harsh about him. But I’ve detested him since he joined the establishment and did adverts for credit cards. I’ll now downgrade my ‘detest’ to ‘dislike’ as you say he does charity stuff.
By my count Foster wrote 219 songs, and my observation is that the vast majority of them weren’t in negro dialect, as they say. I l love Foster, his comic songs, his love songs, his patriotic songs. There is a particularly good, but small (only seventeen tracks), of Foster songs sung by Thomas Hampson called “American Dreamer.” He is accompanied by Jay Unger and Molly Mason, who rose to fame with Ken Burn’s “Civil War.”
I agree with Nellie Bowles (whose name would fit with the Foster song “Nellie Bly”): I assume at this point that all international organizations from the WEF to the WHO are ideologically corrupt. Once again we have been funding our enemies.
Thanks Norman. I too thought it to be patiently presented and well-argued.
Roger Daltrey’s comment is insulting. He has been right wing for decades, and I think he’s assuming scientists are right wing and just in it for the money because HE is like that.
The best quality research seems to come from scientists who are driven by knowledge, rather than cash. Cases of gastric cancer [GC] are dropping in the west because of dedicated scientists like Barry Marshall, who broke medical research protocol and infected himself with Helicobacter pylori because he was sure it was related to stomach ulcers. It was, and ulcers are usually curable now.
Marshall’s work led to the discovery of links between Helicobacter pylori and GC. Dr Emad El Omar then built on this and led a project at the Gartnavel Teaching Hospital that investigated genetic causes of GC. My family were guinea pigs. Other dedicated scientists have since built on that and they can now check for the specific gene fault that causes the horrendous HDGC (hereditary diffuse gastric cancer) and those with it can choose to have their stomach removed.
University scientists don’t become millionaires, but Barry got a Nobel and Emad has my families’ eternal gratitude as none of us have developed GC since his research (about 30 years ago?), despite it appearing many times in the previous 4 generations.
So many scientists are working for the benefit of humankind, we are all lucky that they do. Interesting that Daltrey judges others by his own greed. He must live in a very sad world if he thinks so little of people. I pity him despite his money.
Daltrey is right-wing in some sense; he was for Brexit, for example. But not in all the usual (U.S.) senses of the term. Bruce Dickinson and Brian May are also well known English musicians (and some of the best) known for having voted Tory in the past, but have little if anything in common with MAGA Bible-thumpin’ rednecks. And Daltrey is still friends with Pete Townshend, who was against Brexit.
Most issues, rightly or wrongly, are perceived as a) having only two sides and b) those sides being associated with left and right. But the fact is that some issues have more than two sides: there can be a centrist position, or any of an infinite number of positions between the two extremes, or even something more complex than a one-dimensional spectrum (which comes easy to those used to a two-party system), i.e. one could have a plane with two axes. The most common one has “social” and “fiscal” as the two axes, but there are also others, and one can have more than just two dimensions.
Although I’m sure that they exist, I don’t think that I have met anyone who agrees with me on all issues. A common response is that if they disagree with me on one issue, they claim that I must be in the (right or left) camp corresponding to that view on ALL issues.
I understand what you are saying, but I don’t judge people on a single issue. I’m socialist, pro Scots independence and pro abortion, but work with Tories, Unionists and pro-lifers against gender indoctrination of kids. It seems to be gender pushers who don’t understand nuance, and they can’t tolerate dissent on any facet of their pseudo-religion. I accept differences where there’s a greater good.
The MAGA mob seem to be similar in their intolerance, but I’m looking from over the pond and may be wrong. They certainly seem to confuse socialism with communism.
I judged Daltrey based on several things he’s done, but since it was pointed out that he gives a lot to a cancer charity I realise he has more good in him than I thought. But he’s still wrong about scientists 😁
I don’t know why you think that we disagree. My whole point was that one can’t judge people on a single issue and that if we work with only people who agree with us on everything, then we will work with no-one. We even agree on Daltrey.
I saw (what’s left of) The Who a few years ago. I had a first-row balcony seat because, though the floor was entirely seated, everyone stood up, and stayed up, at the first song. It’s not the same without Keith and John, but their replacements, Pino Palladino and Zak Starkey (son of Ringo) were good, playing the parts—well—people wanted to hear rather than distracting from things by playing something else.
I didn’t think we were disagreeing? I was totally agreeing with you that you shouldn’t judge based on one issue and giving examples of how I put that into practise. Sorry if I didn’t express myself clearly.
I’ve never seen The Who, but I like their music. My big brother was a fan and was going to take me to see them in the late 60s but my mum wouldn’t let me go. She said I was too young 😢 I didn’t get to my first concert (Hawkwind) until 1972.
Re: 1435 – Sicut Dudum, forbidding the enslavement of the Guanche natives
The pope only protected the natives that were baptized or requested baptism.
The rest were fair game for the slave hunters.
Interesting, I hadn’t realised that detail. I’ve amended Wikipedia’s 13 January list accordingly.
Ref Roger Daltry: The once-literally girl across the street, who I was FB friends with, once posted the equivalent of that. I replied that it was monumentally insulting to anyone involved in cancer research. One of her friends asked who I was – a legit question since I didn’t know any of them. She replied, “An old neighbor. Can you believe he’s so stupid. And, he went to college.”
By the time I settled on a good comeback, she had unfriended me.
Please restrict the proportion of your comments in any thread to those given in Da Roolz (about 10%, I believe) so that one or a few people don’t dominate a thread.
Thanks!
Even more amazing than the skateboard-riding cat is her sister. Her littermate is known as the skateboard riding videographer. 😉
On this day:
1435 – Sicut Dudum, forbidding the enslavement of the Guanche natives in Canary Islands by the Spanish, is promulgated by Pope Eugene IV.
1547 – Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, is sentenced to death for treason, on the grounds of having quartered his arms to make them similar to those of the King, Henry VIII of England.
1822 – The design of the Greek flag is adopted by the First National Assembly at Epidaurus.
1840 – The steamship Lexington burns and sinks four miles off the coast of Long Island with the loss of 139 lives.
1842 – Dr. William Brydon, an assistant surgeon in the British East India Company Army during the First Anglo-Afghan War, becomes famous for being the sole survivor of an army of 4,500 men and 12,000 camp followers when he reaches the safety of a garrison in Jalalabad, Afghanistan.
1884 – Welsh physician William Price is arrested for attempting to cremate his deceased infant son; this eventually led to the United Kingdom cremation act becoming law.
1888 – The National Geographic Society is founded in Washington, D.C.
1893 – The Independent Labour Party of the United Kingdom holds its first meeting.
1898 – Émile Zola’s J’accuse…! exposes the Dreyfus affair.
1908 – The Rhoads Opera House fire in Boyertown, Pennsylvania kills 171 people.
1910 – The first public radio broadcast takes place; a live performance of the operas Cavalleria rusticana and Pagliacci is sent out over the airwaves from the Metropolitan Opera House in New York.
1920 – The Reichstag Bloodbath of January 13, 1920, the bloodiest demonstration in German history.
1942 – Henry Ford patents a soybean car, which is 30% lighter than a regular car.
1942 – World War II: First use of an aircraft ejection seat by a German test pilot in a Heinkel He 280 jet fighter.
1953 – An article appears in Pravda accusing some of the most prestigious and prominent doctors, mostly Jews, in the Soviet Union of taking part in a vast plot to poison members of the top Soviet political and military leadership.
1964 – In Manchester, New Hampshire, fourteen-year-old Pamela Mason is murdered. Edward Coolidge is tried and convicted of the crime, but the conviction is set aside by the landmark Fourth Amendment case Coolidge v. New Hampshire (1971).
1966 – Robert C. Weaver becomes the first African American Cabinet member when he is appointed United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.
1968 – Johnny Cash performs live at Folsom State Prison.
1978 – United States Food and Drug Administration requires all blood donations to be labeled “paid” or “volunteer” donors. [The UK continued to use Factor VIII from paid American donors, resulting in the blood contamination scandal. The official inquiry is ongoing.]
1982 – Shortly after takeoff, Air Florida Flight 90, a Boeing 737 jet, crashes into Washington, D.C.’s 14th Street Bridge and falls into the Potomac River, killing 78 including four motorists.
1985 – A passenger train plunges into a ravine in Ethiopia, killing 428 in the worst railroad disaster in Africa.
1988 – Lee Teng-hui becomes the first native Taiwanese President of the Republic of China.
1990 – Douglas Wilder becomes the first elected African American governor as he takes office as Governor of Virginia in Richmond, Virginia.
1993 – The Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) is signed.
2012 – The passenger cruise ship Costa Concordia sinks off the coast of Italy due to the captain Francesco Schettino’s negligence and irresponsibility. There are 32 confirmed deaths.
2018 – A false emergency alert warning of an impending missile strike in Hawaii causes widespread panic in the state.
2020 – The Thai Ministry of Public Health confirms the first case of COVID-19 outside China.
2021 – Outgoing U.S. President Donald Trump is impeached for a second time on a charge of incitement of insurrection following the January 6 United States Capitol attack one week prior.
Births:
1810 – Ernestine Rose, American suffragist, abolitionist, and freethinker (d. 1892).
1870 – Ross Granville Harrison, American biologist and anatomist (d. 1959). [Credited for his pioneering work on animal tissue culture. His work also contributed to the understanding of embryonic development.]
1900 – Gertrude Mary Cox, American mathematician (d. 1978). [Her most important and influential research dealt with experimental design. In 1950 she published the book Experimental Designs , on the subject with W. G. Cochran, which became the major reference work on the design of experiments for statisticians for years afterwards. In 1949 Cox became the first woman elected into the International Statistical Institute and in 1956 was President of the American Statistical Association.]
1926 – Michael Bond, English author, created Paddington Bear (d. 2017).
1927 – Sydney Brenner, South African biologist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2019).
1929 – Joe Pass, American guitarist and composer (d. 1994).
1938 – Daevid Allen, Australian singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 2015).
1938 – Anna Home, English children’s television executive and producer.
1940 – Edmund White, American novelist, memoirist, and essayist.
1952 – Stephen Glover, English journalist, co-founded The Independent.
1960 – Matthew Bourne, English choreographer and director.
1961 – Wayne Coyne, American singer-songwriter and musician. [Included as a namesake of our host.]
1961 – Julia Louis-Dreyfus, American actress, comedian, and producer.
1961 – Suggs, English singer-songwriter, musician, and actor.
1965 – Bill Bailey, British musician and comedian.
1975 – Andrew Yang, American entrepreneur, founder of Venture for America, and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate.
1977 – Orlando Bloom, English actor.
1982 – Ruth Wilson, English actress.
What I look forward to is continued immaturity followed by death. (Dave Barry):
888 – Charles the Fat, Frankish king and emperor (b. 839).
1599 – Edmund Spenser, English poet, Chief Secretary for Ireland (b. 1552).
1625 – Jan Brueghel the Elder, Flemish painter (b. 1568).
1691 – George Fox, English religious leader, founded the Religious Society of Friends (b. 1624). [Better known as the Quakers.]
1717 – Maria Sibylla Merian, German entomologist and illustrator (b. 1647). [Today’s Woman of the Day, see next post below.]
1832 – Thomas Lord, English cricketer, founded Lord’s Cricket Ground (b. 1755).
1864 – Stephen Foster, American composer and songwriter (b. 1826) [Gone from the earth to a better land I know,
I hear their gentle voices calling “Old Black Joe”. Is he cancelled yet…?]
1882 – Wilhelm Mauser, German engineer and businessman, co-founded the Mauser Company (b. 1834). [Did the company employ cats?]
1929 – Wyatt Earp, American police officer (b. 1848).
1941 – James Joyce, Irish novelist, short story writer, and poet (b. 1882).
1943 – Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Swiss painter and sculptor (b. 1889).
1958 – Jesse L. Lasky, American film producer, co-founded Paramount Pictures (b. 1880).
2009 – Patrick McGoohan, Irish-American actor, director, and producer (b. 1928). [I am not a number! I am a free man!]
2009 – Nancy Bird Walton, Australian pilot (b. 1915).
2010 – Teddy Pendergrass, American singer-songwriter (b. 1950).
2017 – Magic Alex, Greek electronics engineer (b. 1942). [He got his nickname from John Lennon, who he impressed with the Nothing Box, a small plastic box with randomly blinking lights which Lennon would stare at for hours while tripping on LSD. He was in India with the Beatles at the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s ashram in India and was then given the job of head of Apple Electronics, having allegedly claimed that he could build a 72-track tape machine. He designed the new Apple Studio in Savile Row. His schemes lost Apple at least £300,000 (£5.54 million in 2021 pounds).]
Woman of the Day:
[From Wikipedia]
Maria Sibylla Merian (born 2 April 1647, died on this day in 1717) was a German entomologist, naturalist, and scientific illustrator. She was one of the earliest European naturalists to document observations about insects directly.
She received her artistic training from her stepfather, Jacob Marrel, a student of the still life painter Georg Flegel. Merian published her first book of natural illustrations in 1675. She had started to collect insects as an adolescent. At age 13, she raised silkworms. In 1679, Merian published the first volume of a two-volume series on caterpillars; the second volume followed in 1683. Each volume contained 50 plates that she engraved and etched. Merian documented evidence on the process of metamorphosis and the plant hosts of 186 European insect species. Along with the illustrations Merian included descriptions of their life cycles.
In 1699, she travelled to Dutch Guiana to study and record the tropical insects native to the region. In 1705, she published Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium, which has been credited with influencing a range of naturalist illustrators. Because of her careful observations and documentation of the metamorphosis of the butterfly, Merian is considered by David Attenborough to be among the more significant contributors to the field of entomology.
She discovered many new facts about insect life through her studies. Until her careful, detailed work, it had been thought that insects were “born of mud” by spontaneous generation. Her pioneering research in illustrating and describing the various stages of development, from egg to larva to pupa and finally to adult, dispelled the notion of spontaneous generation and established the idea that insects undergo distinct and predictable life cycles.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Sibylla_Merian
1864 Stephen Foster dies (both by Jez here and Jerry at the top). I do not know if it was because his music was particularly easy to play or because of its patriotic, homespun, American sound, but in the 1960’s, it seemed that there was always a Stephen Foster piece on the program for every high school band concert we played. Sometimes several of the songs Jerry listed were arranged in a single piece called something like “a medley of American tunes”.
1982 Air Florida Flight 90 – Not that it makes a difference to the victims, but the plane did not crash into the bridge and fall into the river so much as the bridge broke its fall as it was already descending toward the river on climb-out and just caught the top of the bridge structure on the way down. If I recall correctly, the plane had a combination of anomalies caused by heavy, wet snow at Washington DC National Airport (now Ronald Reagan) including extra weight of accumulated snow, slow acceleration on the runway, and a problem with airspeed sensors due to snow and ice accumulation. I think that this was one of the first public mentions that former fighter pilots needed to be mindful that transport aircraft do not have the power that they may be used to to get them out of bad situations.
Thanks, Jim. I just took a look at the crash’s Wikipedia page and it looks like the plane wasn’t properly de-iced and then, after leaving the gate, was held for 49 minutes waiting to take off while more snow fell. The pilots decided against returning to be de-iced again, worried that they would be delayed even more. A tragic misjudgement, although given the airport’s departure from the proper de-icing protocol it would be harsh to blame the flight crew alone.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Florida_Flight_90#Improper_de-icing_procedures
If you want details, full NTSB final report is at
https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/accidentreports/reports/aar8208.pdf
Rick Beato’s tribute to Joe Pass…and his dad.
https://youtu.be/34hQvMhHL34?si=WVGfjIzLgsXHmo4T
Thanks, Stephen – a fascinating video.
I love that action shot of Kulka.
And that ape is an amazing story.
There’s a lot to be depressed about too, but today I’m going with those two.
I don’t understand why South Africa is siding with Hamas. Have they all gone Islamic?
No, just “anti-colonial.”
Things are not going well in South Africa. The government is corrupt, the economy is static and the infrastructure of the society is slowly breaking down (for example lengthy power cuts are now routine). It’s what happens to a society when every appointee is appointed for DEI reasons or political reasons rather than on merit.
It’s now 30 years since Mandela became President, so simply blaming whites for everything that is wrong is wearing thin. Thus the South African government likes nothing more than a way of distracting attention from its own domestic incompetence, with the added bonus of having a fresh way of blaming “whites”.
The New York Times piece on Taylor Swift is nothing but gossip and belongs in The National Enquirer, not a supposedly serious newspaper. Imagine if a right-wing source such as Fox News had published such a piece about a celebrity. Whatever happened to “all the news that’s fit to print?”
Haven’t read the article, but if the implication is that she’s “queer” and not gay (lesbian) it’s not gossip, but propaganda. You can be straight and still consider yourself queer because the definition is about as flabby as it gets, for it includes gender nonconformity and just about anyone who doesn’t fit the stereotype of a prudish, straight-laced, hate-filled religious conservative. Taylor Swift doesn’t. So she can call herself queer.
The point is to widen the members in the category of LGBTQ+ and create more people who support the TQ+ part and think it’s just like supporting LGB: it’s a spectrum.
She posed with her arm draped over another woman’s shoulder for a photograph in a bar or club. It has been blown out of all proportion, with some idiots saying it’s a “porn pose”. No wonder she’s annoyed!
https://twitter.com/BradfemlyWalsh/status/1744999515000590665
Whatever one thinks of porn, can we at least agree that not everything some random punter dislikes is directly due to porn?
How nice of the skylarks to compliment the snipe and corncrakes. I never thought they were that thoughtful.
The entire article about Roger Daltrey is worth reading. While it is true he made a stupid remark about cancer research, he is raising an awful lot of money (£32 million) for the treatment of youngsters with cancer, funding 27 such wards around the UK.
https://archive.is/20240111002846/https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/roger-daltrey-the-who-teenage-cancer-trust-nhs-b8tnn9cf0
Just read it; worth reading, even if one disagrees with it.
Although he doesn’t say so directly, he seems to imply, despite his remark about executive pay, that the problem with the NHS is some fundamental problem, whereas the main problem is that it is a good idea but currently underfunded (but, even so, still better than many other places for most people).
At the end of the day, despite any influence Daltrey might have due to his fame, he is still basically a Shepherd’s Bush geezer. Most have worse opinions than he does; one just doesn’t hear about them. The real problem is stupid people in power, or people think that white people are literally aliens getting a genius fellowship.
Dear God (if an atheist may start that way), it is obvious to anyone working in a public health service that he is right about that. A lot more than half of funding goes to managers here in Nova Scotia (I’m delighted they can’t stop me from saying that now!) and the same is true of the NHS.
Think of it this way. University administration and DEI offices may upset you somewhat. Now imagine it is the health care you would, otherwise, be entitled to that is being removed from your treatment options simply because the money has been spent on administrators’ salaries. Just imagine that when you have cancer and need an expensive treatment which is known to work. Now you can’t have it because the money has been spent on administrators! That is reality these days for ‘healthcare workers.’
He mentioned the NHS twice. The first time, it was just generic “doesn’t work properly—that’s the NHS for you”. The second time he mentioned management salaries. While it is not good if people are overpaid, I seriously doubt the the NHS, or Nova Scotia health service, spends MORE THAN HALF of its total budget on managers. Do you have some figures to back that up? That sounds like the claims that if we could just cut the salaries of MPs in half we could pay off the national debt.
Maybe I shouldn’t have been so harsh about him. But I’ve detested him since he joined the establishment and did adverts for credit cards. I’ll now downgrade my ‘detest’ to ‘dislike’ as you say he does charity stuff.
By my count Foster wrote 219 songs, and my observation is that the vast majority of them weren’t in negro dialect, as they say. I l love Foster, his comic songs, his love songs, his patriotic songs. There is a particularly good, but small (only seventeen tracks), of Foster songs sung by Thomas Hampson called “American Dreamer.” He is accompanied by Jay Unger and Molly Mason, who rose to fame with Ken Burn’s “Civil War.”
I agree with Nellie Bowles (whose name would fit with the Foster song “Nellie Bly”): I assume at this point that all international organizations from the WEF to the WHO are ideologically corrupt. Once again we have been funding our enemies.
The Times of Israel has published a full transcript of Israel’s response to South Africa at The Hague. It’s very well done and a strong defense. Read it in full here: https://www.timesofisrael.com/s-africa-genocide-case-is-a-libel-aimed-to-deny-israel-the-right-to-defend-itself/
Thanks Norman. I too thought it to be patiently presented and well-argued.
Roger Daltrey’s comment is insulting. He has been right wing for decades, and I think he’s assuming scientists are right wing and just in it for the money because HE is like that.
The best quality research seems to come from scientists who are driven by knowledge, rather than cash. Cases of gastric cancer [GC] are dropping in the west because of dedicated scientists like Barry Marshall, who broke medical research protocol and infected himself with Helicobacter pylori because he was sure it was related to stomach ulcers. It was, and ulcers are usually curable now.
Marshall’s work led to the discovery of links between Helicobacter pylori and GC. Dr Emad El Omar then built on this and led a project at the Gartnavel Teaching Hospital that investigated genetic causes of GC. My family were guinea pigs. Other dedicated scientists have since built on that and they can now check for the specific gene fault that causes the horrendous HDGC (hereditary diffuse gastric cancer) and those with it can choose to have their stomach removed.
University scientists don’t become millionaires, but Barry got a Nobel and Emad has my families’ eternal gratitude as none of us have developed GC since his research (about 30 years ago?), despite it appearing many times in the previous 4 generations.
So many scientists are working for the benefit of humankind, we are all lucky that they do. Interesting that Daltrey judges others by his own greed. He must live in a very sad world if he thinks so little of people. I pity him despite his money.
Daltrey is right-wing in some sense; he was for Brexit, for example. But not in all the usual (U.S.) senses of the term. Bruce Dickinson and Brian May are also well known English musicians (and some of the best) known for having voted Tory in the past, but have little if anything in common with MAGA Bible-thumpin’ rednecks. And Daltrey is still friends with Pete Townshend, who was against Brexit.
Most issues, rightly or wrongly, are perceived as a) having only two sides and b) those sides being associated with left and right. But the fact is that some issues have more than two sides: there can be a centrist position, or any of an infinite number of positions between the two extremes, or even something more complex than a one-dimensional spectrum (which comes easy to those used to a two-party system), i.e. one could have a plane with two axes. The most common one has “social” and “fiscal” as the two axes, but there are also others, and one can have more than just two dimensions.
Although I’m sure that they exist, I don’t think that I have met anyone who agrees with me on all issues. A common response is that if they disagree with me on one issue, they claim that I must be in the (right or left) camp corresponding to that view on ALL issues.
I understand what you are saying, but I don’t judge people on a single issue. I’m socialist, pro Scots independence and pro abortion, but work with Tories, Unionists and pro-lifers against gender indoctrination of kids. It seems to be gender pushers who don’t understand nuance, and they can’t tolerate dissent on any facet of their pseudo-religion. I accept differences where there’s a greater good.
The MAGA mob seem to be similar in their intolerance, but I’m looking from over the pond and may be wrong. They certainly seem to confuse socialism with communism.
I judged Daltrey based on several things he’s done, but since it was pointed out that he gives a lot to a cancer charity I realise he has more good in him than I thought. But he’s still wrong about scientists 😁
I don’t know why you think that we disagree. My whole point was that one can’t judge people on a single issue and that if we work with only people who agree with us on everything, then we will work with no-one. We even agree on Daltrey.
I saw (what’s left of) The Who a few years ago. I had a first-row balcony seat because, though the floor was entirely seated, everyone stood up, and stayed up, at the first song. It’s not the same without Keith and John, but their replacements, Pino Palladino and Zak Starkey (son of Ringo) were good, playing the parts—well—people wanted to hear rather than distracting from things by playing something else.
I didn’t think we were disagreeing? I was totally agreeing with you that you shouldn’t judge based on one issue and giving examples of how I put that into practise. Sorry if I didn’t express myself clearly.
I’ve never seen The Who, but I like their music. My big brother was a fan and was going to take me to see them in the late 60s but my mum wouldn’t let me go. She said I was too young 😢 I didn’t get to my first concert (Hawkwind) until 1972.
Re: 1435 – Sicut Dudum, forbidding the enslavement of the Guanche natives
The pope only protected the natives that were baptized or requested baptism.
The rest were fair game for the slave hunters.
Interesting, I hadn’t realised that detail. I’ve amended Wikipedia’s 13 January list accordingly.
Ref Roger Daltry: The once-literally girl across the street, who I was FB friends with, once posted the equivalent of that. I replied that it was monumentally insulting to anyone involved in cancer research. One of her friends asked who I was – a legit question since I didn’t know any of them. She replied, “An old neighbor. Can you believe he’s so stupid. And, he went to college.”
By the time I settled on a good comeback, she had unfriended me.
Please restrict the proportion of your comments in any thread to those given in Da Roolz (about 10%, I believe) so that one or a few people don’t dominate a thread.
Thanks!
Even more amazing than the skateboard-riding cat is her sister. Her littermate is known as the skateboard riding videographer. 😉
DEI-ist – I like it, and will no doubt use it!